Per your Question,Yes there is a difference.Ownership and Control of direction are controlled by the startup and not a service providers "client".
Here is a better metric( which you hinted at ) compare number of users per employee and proximity to the employee.
something does have to change, we need to build AOL,PAYPAL and Nokia ( there are analogues with Reliance,eztap,Micromax )
I would say let the top line solve topline problems, we need better bottom line solutions if we are to do any country by country comp